Sponichi is reporting that there's still a chance the Eagles might bring Katsuya Nomura back for the 2010 season.

Amidst a great run that will likely see the Eagles finish in second place (they can clinch tonight), fans have begun to clamor for the return of their lovable manager next season.

Could it be, perhaps, that the Eagles' front office saw what happened in Chiba and decided that it might make more sense for them to work along with the fans, than against them?

IMHO, just let Nomura play out the rest of his managing career with the Eagles. I think he's already mentioned that he only wants to manage a few more years, so it's not like they'd be stuck with him for another 5-10 years. And maybe Nomura would be willing to take a pay-cut if it meant the team would be spending that money towards gettinyon some bullpen help?

=== Update 10/9/2009 @ 11:58pm

A follow-up story by Sponichi provides a reminder that a bunch of Eagles' fans gave Rakuten a headache when they decided to let Yasushi Tao go after a year at the helm. The idea here is that Nomura is much more popular and letting him go after such a strong season will likely lead to a much larger lock-out of fans.

The story continues that the team could retain try to retain Nomura in a different role, like Senior Director, in order to deflect his removal as manager.

It would appear, at least based on these two articles, that the Eagles' front office is very much aware of how popular Nomura is and what removing him could do for the team's popularity. The question now is in which direction the team goes in based on this information.

4 comments on “There’s still hope for Katsuya Nomura!”

The sooner the better that Rakuten removes Nomura from the managers seat IMHO. I’m really happy that Rakuten has done well this season but I’m also disappointed at the amount of media coverage that Nomura gets compared to the team itself which takes away from the team I feel. I honestly think he’s done more to hurt the team rather than help it overall (this season included as I feel that the coaches and moreso the team’s veterans have helped get the team to where it’s at in regards to winning).

I do realize that Nomura is quite popular with the fans but, I’d honestly like to see what Rakuten could do under a different manager.

I don’t think the focus on Nomura is of his own doing though — the media has played a fairly large portion of that.

The other thing to think about is this: is there a possibility that the focus on Nomura has allowed the players to play more freely because they don’t have to worry about the media?

The team is relatively young, isn’t there a chance that Nomura is providing a shield of some sort for his players to flourish?

And without Nomura, who is to say that the team would get as much national coverage? They aren’t exactly a start-studded line-up with a bunch of players that can provide juicy quotes. Nomura may have helped Rakuten establish a large national following.

But them I’m also a Nomura fan that would like to see him return next season, so I probably don’t have as much of a partial take on the matter.

Nomura needs to go. He is all about himself and not his players. He talks trash about them and to them. He doesn’t give them the opportunities to do what they are able to do. Just imagine what this team could do under another manager who really cares. Nomura has made comments like he thought it was impossible for this team to go to the playoffs and that he was surprised. What kind of manager says something like that?

While I’m not trying to make any excuses for the man, you do have to realize, he is REALLY old school. If you look back on my posts about Nomura, you’ll find that he realizes he can be really hard on his players sometimes, but that he doesn’t necessarily mean it.

Tough love is a very big thing in Japanese culture. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. In this case, it’s really hard to say. But when a team goes from consistently ending their seasons in 5th and 6th place to suddenly finishing in 2nd with no major upgrades, you do have to sort of scratch head and ask how that happened.

In some ways, I really am interested in seeing how this team performs under a different manager — would they do better? Or worse?